


Homecoming

by IreneADonovan



Series: Come to Rest [3]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Ableism (especially of the internalized variety), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Disabled Character, Charles in a Wheelchair, Charles-centric, Erik is not a Happy Bunny, M/M, Post-Cuba, Protective Erik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 19:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11812458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IreneADonovan/pseuds/IreneADonovan
Summary: Five months after Cuba, Charles is not dealing well, and Erik isn't doing much better...





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fullmetalcarer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fullmetalcarer/gifts).



> This was a difficult one to write. Charles is in a really bad headspace at this point, and Erik's isn't much better. This is the low point, though. They'll be in a better place in the next story (not that it will bw angst-free)...
> 
> This whole series is dedicated to FMC, who got it all started with her prompt for Oasis.

March 22, 1963. The second day of spring, but the skies remained cold and grey and gloomy. It was supposed to be a time to celebrate new beginnings, but certainly none of the residents of the Xavier mansion were in the mood for celebrations.

Five months since Cuba. Five months since Erik had killed Shaw. Five months since his arrogance and rage and carelessness had nearly cost him the one truly good thing to have entered his life since his mother's death.

Charles had been back at the mansion for a little over a month, which should have been a good thing, yet everyone walked on eggshells around the fragile, angry man in the wheelchair, the ghost of their beloved professor.

Everyone except Erik, anyway. Raven, too, some of the time. But it was only Erik who could badger and bully Charles into taking care of himself, even just a little.

Erik knew loss and grief and mourning as well as he knew the numbers tattooed on his forearm, yet he also knew the time came when it became necessary to pick up the pieces, carry on despite the pain, find a new purpose. But Charles simply wasn't there yet.

He himself hadn't thought he could find a purpose beyond the vengeance he had pursued for nearly twenty years. Then he had met Charles. Charles who had made him dream of something more. Made him want there to be more. Made him hope, at least for a moment.

Then Cuba had happened. The humans had turned on them, proving what Erik had already known, that humanity could never be trusted. And Charles had gotten caught in the crossfire.

And now he would never walk again.

He insisted he didn't blame Erik, but Erik knew he was lying. The forgiveness he'd granted in that Cuban shack had proven ephemeral, had been supplanted by anger, by hate. He continually pushed Erik away, permitting his touch only as a caregiver, and even that he fought.

Everything between them had become a battle, and Erik was getting tired of it. Things couldn't continue on the way they were much longer, especially if Charles continued to drink most of his meals, as was fast becoming his habit.

“It's time for dinner,” Erik said quietly, braced for battle.

“I'm not hungry.”

“Doesn't matter,” Erik said, implacable. “You're going to be civil and have dinner with the rest of us, and then we're going to get you into the shower.”

“I don't need one.”

“You most certainly do.” Charles' hair was lank and greasy, and he was beginning to smell.

Charles sulked all through dinner, not saying a word, eating but a few bites of the stew Moira had prepared. And afterward, he attempted to beeline for one of his stashed bottles of scotch.

Erik blocked his path. “Bath. Now.”

"I could make you move.

“You could. But you won't.” Erik hoped. “But if you don't start moving, I _will_ levitate you into the bathroom.”

“Bloody tyrant,” Charles muttered under his breath. But he did start moving.

Erik followed him toward the bathroom that had been remodelled to meet his current needs. The tense set of his shoulders and the sharp movements of his arms screamed of his anger, his resentment.

Charles hated him now; Erik understood that. That casually deflected bullet had severed more than Charles' spinal cord; it had broken their relationship beyond repair. But until the day Charles demanded he leave the mansion, Erik would stay, would absorb the abuse, would give Charles as much as he was willing to accept, and he hoped that day never came.

Charles halted a little inside the doorway, spun to face Erik, his eyes a seething sapphire sea.

Erik said nothing, just went to a lower cabinet and retrieved the supplies necessary to catheterize Charles.

Charles' expression grew even darker.

“We've been through this,” Erik said calmly. “If you won't do it yourself, I'll do it. Or you can wait and piss yourself. And I won't help clean you up.” Though they both knew he would.

“Let's get on with it then,” Charles muttered, wheeling close to the toilet.

And that was where his cooperation in the process ended. He sat unmoving, eyes closed, as Erik pushed down his sweats, drew his penis out, and patiently worked the tubing up Charles' urethra.

Once, having his hands on Charles' cock would have meant something much different. He recalled frenzied hand jobs on the road and in the mansion, the two of them lust-crazed and high on the adrenaline charge of saving the world.

They had indeed saved the world, but they had lost each other. Charles only endured his touch now, this mockery of what had been between them, a lover's touch reduced to a medical procedure. Charles couldn't even feel Erik's hands on his cock.

Once Charles' bladder was empty, Erik turned the water on to warm. Then he pulled Charles shirt off over his head, lifted him enough to slide his sweatpants down to mid-thigh, set him down again to slide them off over his feet. And all the while Charles showed no reactions of any kind. Just a stony indifference.

Erik lifted Charles from the chair, trying to ignore the look and feel of Charles' already-atrophying legs hooked over his arm. The man had been an athlete, a runner, with a lean, strong body hidden under the cardigans and tweed.

No more. Erik's carelessness had taken that from him.

He settled Charles on the shower bench, feeling like he was handling a life-sized doll for all the reaction Charles gave. He tested the water; it was warm enough.

Charles' hair was a mess. It hadn't been cut since before Cuba, and it nearly reached his shoulders. He needed a shave, too; he was sporting a two-week beard. But Erik was just too tired to fight every battle. Keeping Charles healthy and clean were his current limits.

Raven and the boys helped where they could, as much as Charles would let them. Raven was the only one who could cajole him into eating, and they all took turns waking in the night to turn an unwilling Charles to help stave off pressure sores. But Erik was the only one who would truly push him, for all the good it was doing.

Charles glared at Erik as he wet him down, remained silent and still as Erik shampooed his hair and beard, as Erik rinsed away the shampoo and lathered his upper body.

“You should be the one doing this,” Erik said quietly.

Charles still said nothing.

“I can't do this forever.” Erik soaped Charles' insensate lower body.

“Then stop.” Charles' voice was deadly calm. “I never asked you to do this in the first place.”

“You didn't. You wouldn't. But somebody has to, since you won't.” Erik washed away the soap.

“Why you? Why the bloody hell does it have to be you?”

“Because I love you, you idiot,” Erik bellowed. He put a hand on either side of Charles' face and planted a searing kiss on those ruby lips he ached for.

Charles' eyes went wide, and for a few delicious moments he yielded to the kiss. Then he shoved Erik away, sapphire eyes blazing. “Get out. Get out. Now, damn you.”

Erik masked his roiling emotions, turned off the water, slid the wheelchair into Charles' reach, and walked out the door.

**~xXx~**

Charles watched Erik go, his lips still burning from that kiss. Erik still loved him? Not possible. Just not possible. He'd stayed out of guilt, nothing more.

Was there even anything of him left worth loving? He stared down at his useless legs, his even more useless cock. Sex had bound them together, sex and danger and savage need, but all Charles had now was shattered ideals, crumbled dreams, and a broken body.

He sat in the shower until he grew painfully cold. Erik clearly wasn't returning, so he either had to resign himself to slowly freezing to death or figure a way to get out of the shower on his own.

Truthfully, neither option held much appeal. Freezing, though, seemed marginally worse. And, as much of a bastard as Erik was, he _had_ left the wheelchair where Charles could reach it.

He leaned over cautiously and wrapped his fingers around the frame, pulling it sideways, as close to the tub as he could. Erik had left the brakes on, and Charles detached the near arm and set it out of the way.

Then he grasped his right leg and lifted it over the edge of the tub. It was still a bit surreal to hold his leg on his hands yet not feel the touch. But it was real, all too real. His legs were still there, physically, but they might as well have been a stranger's.

He set his foot on the bathmat, then lifted his other leg out. Now came the tricky part. He wrapped his right hand around the far edge of the chair's seat, braced the left on the shower bench, took a deep breath and heaved, pulling with his right arm, pushing with the left.

After a few agonizing moments, his arse lifted then landed on the chair. Yes! And brrr as his bare back made contact with cold vinyl.

Erik had left a fresh pair of sweats on the counter, and Charles wheeled over to retrieve them. He pulled the shirt on first, though it did little to quell the chill in his bones, then he lifted his right ankle onto his left thigh and threaded the pants on over his foot. He lowered his leg onto the footrest, drew the pants up to his knee, then repeated with the other leg. He left the pants at his knees; it would be less difficult to pull them up once he was on the bed, and all he really wanted to do was crawl under the covers and warm up anyway. He wheeled toward the bedroom.

Erik had even turned his covers down. Unwillingly, Charles smiled, just a little. Could Erik really mean what he'd said? Charles pushed the unbidden thought away. It didn't matter, wouldn't matter, couldn't matter.

Charles maneuvered in close to the bed. He hadn't bothered to replace the one armrest, so he'd transfer in from that side. He set his feet on the floor, dragged his arse onto the bed, lifted his legs onto the mattress. He laboriously yanked and tugged and twisted until his sweats were up over his hips, then he buried himself under the covers.

But sleep wouldn't come. The effort of getting himself out of the shower and into bed had left him drained, but his mind continued to worry at Erik's words. His body slowly warmed and relaxed, but his thoughts would not still.

After a long while, he heard the door swing open. He closed his eyes, feigning sleep.

Footsteps, soft on the carpet, coming close. Erik. He felt the mattress dip, felt the solidness of Erik's body press against his arm and side, felt Erik's hand stroke his cheek.

Charles forced himself to stay relaxed and unmoving, though he wanted so badly to lean into the touch.

“I'm sorry I just left you there. I know you told me to, but I shouldn't have.” Erik's voice shook just a little. “It's just you make me crazy sometimes.”

Erik paused sighed. “I hate having to fight you, to push you, but if I don't, who will. I'm not going to let you give up, no matter how hard it is.

Erik's fingers strayed into his hair, stroking it gently. “And I know it's hard, insanely hard. But you're the man who dove into the ocean to save a drowning man, even knowing you weren't so good a swimmer.”

He wasn't _that_ bad a swimmer.

“You're arrogant and pigheaded and entirely too trusting, but you're no quitter. You wouldn't even give up on me.” Erik brushed a kiss against Charles' temple. “And I love you for that. I know you hate me—”

_I don't hate you._

Erik froze, and Charles realized he'd projected the thought.

Charles sighed inwardly and opened his eyes. “I could never hate you, Erik.”

“You should.”

“But I don't.”

“How can you not hate me. I put a bullet in your spine. And you've been so damned angry. How can you be that angry and not blame me?”

“You were defending yourself. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Am I angry about being stuck like this? Hell, yes. There is no part of this that doesn't suck. I'll come to terms with it, I know I'll have to, but I'm not there yet.”

Erik trailed a thumb down Charles' cheek. “I'm not going anywhere. I don't care how long it takes, how long you need.”

Charles smiled tightly. “Good. Because right now I really do need your help.”

“For now,” Erik said. “You won't need help forever.”

“No, but I'll still want you with me, if you'll still have me.”

“If I'll still have you?”

“I'm not exactly the man I was.”

“Weren't you listening? That doesn't matter to me.”

“Maybe it matters to me,” Charles said quietly.

“Charles?”

“My cock doesn't work, Erik. I can't even feel the bloody thing.”

“I know.”

“You don't. Not really. You don't know what it's like to have half your body suddenly useless, to lose a freedom you'd taken entirely for granted, to know your life has been irrevocably altered in an instant.”

Erik lifted Charles' hand toward his temple. “Then show me.”

Charles hesitated only a minute before completing the connection. He pushed memories at Erik, none too gently. Those first terrifying moments on the beach, realizing he couldn't feel his legs. Waiting, helpless, in that little shack on the island, then the excruciating journey to a hospital in Miami. Emergency surgery. Waking up to the grim diagnosis: complete transection of the spinal cord at T12. The ever-present fiery ache of healing bone, endured because at least it was feeling. The tests to determine which of his nerves still functioned. The hours of therapy to build up the muscles that still obeyed his command. Returning to the mansion, everyone tiptoeing around him, unable to see him as anything but broken. Seeing himself the same way. The haunting memories of being buried to the hilt in Erik's arse, and the knowledge that would never happen again.

Charles withdrew his hand, realized his fingers were damp with Erik's tears, felt moisture on his own cheeks.

Erik sat motionless and silent for what seemed forever, tears still trickling down his cheeks. He took Charles' hand, kissed it gently. “I love you,” he said, voice rough with emotion, “and I'm not going anywhere. Yeah, the sex was fantastic, but there's a lot more between us than just sex. I'm here for the long haul.”

Charles wanted to believe him.

“Just don't shut me out anymore,” Erik said. “Please.”

Charles hesitated, nodded. “I'll try.”

Erik leaned over, touched his lips tp Charles'. “That's all I can ask.”

As Charles settled in to sleep, for the first time in months, he felt a flicker of hope.


End file.
